Secret Ceremonials
by Starlightlovesya123
Summary: Razer steps into the portal, knowing it will take him to Aya. He does not know that it will also take him to the farthest reaches of his mind, to the sweetest and most painful memories, and release him back again. Razaya, with Ilana.


Razer expected a fall. He expected a washing tremor that overcame all senses, and a sudden feeling of determination. He expected an aching mind and spasms of light ahead in the tunnel. He was in a portal. Danger was to be anticipated. But he also expected it to be quick.

He did not expect such _sound._

He did not expect invisible fingers to peel back the secret layers of his head, revealing core and raw emotion—and not just rage. Despair, utter and terrifying loss, fear as dark as obsidian. He did not expect to see anything but that pink swirl which the Star Sapphires had conjured.

But he _did _see something else. And what he saw was Ilana.

He saw Ilana and he saw _home. _He saw the endless pinnacles of sky-eating buildings, as they raked their talons into dusky sunset. He saw crumbling statues and felt sand rushing beneath his feet, swirling into a dust storm. He felt his heels frozen to ground, and he felt the power of the place. The power of his own memory, which he had repressed with such vehemence.

He saw the Red Lanterns on the horizon, the crimson glow which he had missed the first time. He saw them shimmer and pulsate like an angry, beating heart.

He saw Ilana rushing towards him, felt her pushing him aside.

"Razer!" she cried over the roar of breaking ground. He gripped her sides, unable to concentrate, unable to focus on the fact that he was feeling her. Real—feeling her—skin and bones—the grey lines still etched on her face.

"What is happening?" he asked. "Tell me, Ilana!"

"You're forgetting," she said. She scrambled to her feet, ripping the seam of her skirt. She pulled him towards the doorway, as a blast of earth shattered the room's only window. "The portal is trying to take away your memories."

Razer clutched her to his side and looked around. He saw the jumbled confusion of reality around him, a reality of combined memories. There were many impossible things. The walls were changing from transparent to solid every few seconds, like a blinking stoplight. The dust storm was growing arms and legs. The ground beneath his feet was not ground at all, but running water.

He tripped backwards, losing his balance. He rapidly turned his head back towards Ilana, asking, "Is this what has become of Hal Jordan?"

"Listen to me, Razer," Ilana said. She gripped his face in her hands, and finally he was still. "You must listen to me. I know not what has become of Hal. He may already have forgotten everything."

It seemed a distant time, but Razer remembered the warning the Star Sapphires had issued before he and Hal stepped into the portals. It was possible they could lose their memories, as they travelled from one world to another. And it was happening now. Happening before he could stop it.

"What must I do?" he asked, and attempted to stand but couldn't. The water pulled him down again, as if chains had been wrapped and locked around his ankles.

"You must listen to me. You must look at me," Ilana replied. Her voice was full of a power and resonance that he had never heard before.

"I am listening."

"You must remember, Razer. It is only love that will bring you from this place."

"You know that I—"

"_Show _me!"

The floor cracked beneath them, an unfeasible rift in the water, as if the legendary Moses had parted the ocean. Razer hooked his arm around Ilana's waist, hoisting her from the bottom balcony and onto the rooftop.

"What must I show you?" he asked. The scorching light of the Red Lanterns was looming closer, and he kept one hand on Ilana's shoulder.

"Show me that you remember!"

She plunged forward and her lips touched his forehead. He remembered kissing her in the same place, seemingly ages ago, in a different world, in a stable reality. As her lips touched him again, his mind released. The Red Lanterns were forgotten. The scene melted. Rage was lost in a drain of colors. He only saw the past.

He saw the first day, when he caught sight of her on the crowded market streets. He saw the tiny jewel that hung from her black hood that day, a ruby that stole only radiance and not beauty. He saw the fruits which he'd been surveying, that she'd been selling with the gentle shyness of a teenager. He felt the unusual heat under his skin, as her eyes skimmed his face.

He saw that afternoon on Aouerth, when the rain poured like a behemoth from the yellow skies. He saw her drenched and smiling, as the warm water followed the trails of her markings. Razer had always liked her black markings—the lines on her face—much better than his own. They were soft and lovely, not cold and rigid.

He saw them that night under the stars, curled in beds of sheet-grass, when the summer was just testing the lands of Testrix. He saw the bending rings of Sait and Hanar, the two moons of his home planet, and recalled the legends which Ilana had explained to him. Sait and Hanar, the wandering sisters.

He felt the weight of her body in his arms, as he married her, as he took the first leap of faith. He brushed his fingers along the gold which decorated his wedding clothes. He felt her body curled against his own, in the heat of endless evening, and remembered it was the closest he'd ever come to weeping.

He remembered.

"I see, Ilana," his lips said without moving.

"Good." Her voice reverberated within the room. The closed room, where she was laid among candles on a death bed.

"I do not wish to forget."

"I know you don't, Razer. You will not."

"I must go to Aya, Ilana. I must go to her."

Ilana's eyes opened, and they were Aya's eyes again. They were green and they were robotic, they were automated, they were full of whirring parts and programmed machinery. And yet they were as real as his own, large blue ones.

"I never left you, Razer," she said. Her green eyes blinked once, twice, three times, like she'd only just awoken. She sat up, her torn skirt falling to her ankles. The candles flickered as she moved. "Not once."

He does not want to leave. And yet he knows she will be on the other side of the door. "I know."

"Go now. Go to your love."

And he does. He turns away from her to go meet her, in the constructed body of an AI, in the green energy of a Lantern he once considered his enemy. He steps through the swirling door which Ilana has crafted, and he raises his ring.

But, this time, it is not rage that fuels his power.

No. This time, it is something else entirely.

* * *

**Author's Note: I finally took it upon myself to watch Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I was already shipping Razaya before there were even any hints, so when that finale came around, I squealed into a pillow like a five-year-old. But I always wondered what exactly happened in those portals. Why didn't Razer forget anything? Why was the trip so easy for him? Why was he so sure about Aya?**

**Anyway, this is one of my speculations, and hopefully I wrote it well enough for you to understand and enjoy. Please let me know what you think! I'm always looking for improvement! And, as always thanks for reading :)**


End file.
